


tony

by textbookchoices



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27252361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/textbookchoices/pseuds/textbookchoices
Summary: It’s fine.He’s brave.He’s twenty-two, a college graduate, a scientist and anAvenger.He can handle one little old haunted house.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	tony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).



> Can be read as pre-slash or gen, up to you!

Peter’s scream, when it comes, is startlingly high-pitched and accompanied by a full-body jump and an instinctive raising of his fist. His heart is in his throat, his pulse rocketing beneath his skin. His eyes flicker from side to side, looking for whatever it is that have his spider senses going haywire, a constantly screaming **_DANGER WARNING LOOK OUT DANGER WARNING LOOK OUT_** even though there’s nothing there.

Well, no, there _is_ something there.

The problem is that he can’t see it, or hear it, or feel it—except when he can. It’s the softest brush of the air moving against the back of his neck, of a silent whisper against his ear or scratching against the floor, the glimpse of something just out of the corner of his eye, gone when he spins around to look.

Peter tightens his fists and closes his eyes.

It’s fine.

He’s brave.

He’s twenty-two, a college graduate, a scientist and an _Avenger_.

He can handle one little old haunted house.

It’s fine. It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine.

From somewhere down the old, moldy hallway comes a long, lonely scratching noise, like a fingernail being dragged along old, chipped wood.

You know what?

No.

Nope.

Peter is brave, he’s an Avenger, he’s also not crazy and he’s not going to die trying to evict a ghost from an old mansion just because the mansion was Mr. Stark’s ancestral home and he’d left it to Peter when he’d died. Peter is perfectly happy with the apartment, and honestly, Peter’s not sure Mr. Stark had completely thought this through. He was kind of known for giving weird gifts.

He pauses, hearing the distinct sound of footsteps, only they were… muffled. He glanced at the floor. The noise was coming from the… would it be the basement? Or maybe Mr. Stark had had a lab down there? Was somebody in Mr. Stark’s old lab?

He really did not want to go into the creepy old basement of the creepy old mansion to look for the creepy mysterious noises. In hindsight, what he should have down when he decided to spend the third week after college graduation checking out the new property he’d been given ownership of on his eighteenth birthday—he hadn’t had the opportunity to even come see it before—was bring MJ with him. They weren’t dating anymore, but they were still friends, and she loved ghosts and haunted houses and weird, creepy things involving serial killers and probably monsters that lived in creepy old basements in creepy old mansions that made creepy mysterious noises.

Okay.

Okay, fine.

It’s cool. He’s procrastinating. He needs to go down the stairs, to the basement.

Funnily enough, he can’t find an entrance anywhere, and he has to listen for noise of the air moving—there, behind the bookcase in an old office. Because why not have secret, hidden entrances to secret, hidden basements? Totally normal, Mr. Stark. Not weird or creepy or terrifying at all.

None of the lights in the mansion were working; Peter figured a breaker box might be around somewhere, but he hadn’t found it yet. Maybe it'll be in the secret basement. He sighs and pulls the bookcase forward just enough to slip between it and the wall. There was a keypad, but the door was open—and the ground had a freshly smoothed away pile of dust from where the door touched the ground.

Great. Just—great.

He held up his phone, the flashlight shining dubiously down the long, dark, spiraling staircase.

One step at a time, Peter. One… step… at… a… time…

A gust of wind hits him when he reaches the bottom of the stairs, and he jumps forward when a sudden, loud noise echoes through the pitch black room from behind him. Two things happen at once: he recognizes the noise as a computer booting up—an old one—and the lights come on, bright and absolutely everywhere.

He’s in a lab, alright. A pristine one, in fact. This looks like one of Mr. Stark’s labs at the Avengers compound or the tower, rather than like the museum of old and ghostly upstairs. Peter grins, his shoulders relaxing for the first time since he’d entered the mansion and realized it was probably goddamn haunted.

And then a hand touches his shoulder, and he screams.

Screams, and jerks around wildly, his fist going through the face of—

The face of—

“Mr. Stark?”

Mr. Stark blinks at him, and then says, “Woah, kid. Some fight or flight instinct there, huh? Good thing you can’t actually hit me or might’ve really felt that one.”

Mr. Stark’s skin glitches around Peter’s fist, like light that’s distorting a picture.

Peter pulls his hand back, his entire arm shaking, and the glitch disappears.

It’s Mr. Stark. Or—a hologram of him, one that looks so real you never could have guessed it wasn’t really him.

That it was just a projection.

Peter stumbles back. He fumbles to find something to say.

Mr. Stark grins. “Hey, welcome to my old childhood home, kid. I’m hoping you spruce the place up a bit. There should be enough in your bank account to manage it. This is the workshop—fully upgraded, of course. I made sure to keep it that way over the years in case I ever needed it. Never bothered with the upstairs; I hated this place when I was alive. Mothballs everywhere. Terrible wallpaper.”

Peter swallows back the emotions threatening to spill out of his chest, his throat.

“What are you?”

Mr. Stark smiles again, more gently this time.

“I’m an A.I., kid. I come with the house. Congratulations.”

“But you touched me. Just now. I felt it.” Peter feels like he wants to cry, or—or sit down, or—something. Anything.

Mr. Stark’s eyes are bright and brown, expressive and as real as they ever were before.

“I can make myself tangible if needed. Well, sort of. I can explain the science if you—hey, Pete, you okay? Maybe sit down.”

Peter sits in a heap on the floor. There’s a chair a few feet away. He doesn’t think he’d make it there in time.

“Why didn’t it say?”

“Hm?”

“The—the will. It said I got the mansion. If I’d known you were—you were—I wouldn’t have taken so long to—”

Mr. Stark sighs. “I wasn’t around for the creating of that particular document. But probably? I wanted you to have time to move on. Grieve. Learn to live without me.”

“But you’re here.”

“And I’m not real—not the way you remember me, anyway,” Mr. Stark says, holding up a hand so that Peter can see it shudder and change in the light. Then he smiles. “But yeah, I’m here.”

“Why? Why—here? You could be at the compound, or—or the cabin—”

“I’m not meant to be a tool for the Avengers, kid, and Pepper wouldn’t… That wouldn’t be fair to her.”

“But it’s fair to me?”

“You can turn me off and on, kid. I’m an A.I., so no hard feelings. I’m here to help you. Didn’t want to leave you high and dry again. That’s—”

For an A.I. that supposedly can’t feel, Mr. Stark looks oddly conflicted. “That’s why I was made. For you. To be what you need. Bit of an upgrade from Karen, you know?”

“You—” Peter swallows. How does he even…? “You were made just for me? To help me? As… Spider-Man?”

“Nailed it in one, kid.”

Peter breathes, slowly. And then nods.

“Okay. I—yeah. Okay. Great.” He wipes at his eyes.

It’s not Mr. Stark, exactly, but…

“Can I call you Tony?”

Tony laughs, eyes sparking. “Yeah, kid. You can call me Tony.”

“Okay, Tony,” Peter says, standing up on shaking legs. “Let’s, uh. Can you show me, the—the—”

Tony holds out a hand, a physical touch to help Peter stand up straight. Peter stares at the hand touching his; it feels real. Tony feels real.

Tony keeps grinning.

“Hell yes,” he says. Music starts playing, the loud classical rock kind that Mr. Stark always liked. “Let’s do some science!”


End file.
